


Invisible

by lea_hazel



Series: The Incarnation of Jupiter Jones [1]
Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Background Character Death, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Community: purimgifts, Gen, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 10:32:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10161221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/lea_hazel
Summary: After a lifetime of quiet service, fading into obscurity in the back corridors with the other servants, her safe invisibility had lately been ripped away.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoke/gifts).



“That’s impossible,” said Jupiter, for what felt like the five thousandth time that day.

Kalique smiled a slow, predatory smile. “Not at all, my dear.”

“But it makes no sense!” said Jupiter insistently.

“I think you’ll find it makes perfect sense,” said Kalique, drawing forward to loom her full height over her. “My mother died at dawn on the day of your birth. Not six hours passed between her last breath and your first.”

Jupiter jerked away, but there was only so far she could go with her back to a literal wall.

She couldn’t explain why she had spent the last three days avoiding the temple district, where she worked, anymore than she could describe the feeling of having eyes on her, hidden in the shadows, all the time. She was being watched, though she couldn’t prove it and she didn’t know by whom. After a lifetime of quiet service, fading into obscurity in the back corridors with the other servants, her safe invisibility had lately been ripped away. When her twisting insides couldn’t bear it anymore she snuck away and tried disappearing into the crowds of the central marketplace.

That’s where they caught up with her, close to dusk, as the markets were beginning to empty, and pinned her in an abandoned alleyway. Guards in gilded mail surrounded her in a tight half-circle, silently menacing though their weapons weren’t drawn. Their hands hovered over their sword hilts, as though prepared for the first sign of dissent, until a soft but firm voice broke through from among them. The line parted neatly in the middle and a woman in crimson robes appeared, her face marked by a cryptic smile and an unmistakable aspect of power.

“But _why me_?” asked Jupiter finally.

“That I cannot answer,” said Kalique, shaking her head. “Fate works in mysterious ways, I suppose.”

Jupiter hummed, trying to stall for time. “What happens now?”

Kalique shrugged her bare shoulders. “Either you accept the recurrence and take your place among the pantheon, or you escape into obscurity and Seraphi’s seat remains empty.”

Jupiter narrowed her eyes at the goddess. “What happens when her seat is empty?”

“The usual,” said Kalique, snapping a second, knife-thin smile. “Power struggle, petty squabbles, divine politics. Sooner or later, someone or other will come out on top.”

“And you want that someone to be you,” Jupiter guessed baldly.

“You’re smarter than you look,” said Kalique.

“Thanks,” replied Jupiter dryly. “So, what is it that you want from me? Isn’t it better for you if I _don’t_ accept the recurrence?”

“One would think,” said Kalique, “but the gods have been squabbling over Seraphi’s empty seat for decades now, and I grow weary of it. Something is required to break the stalemate. We all know it. The recurrence comes with certain... rights and privileges. I could be of use to you, if you were to use those privileges on my behalf.”

Jupiter blinked. “You think _I_ can break the gods’ infighting?”

“Darling,” said Kalique, “ _only_ you can break up their fight. So tell me, what is it that you want in return?”

Jupiter thought back to the life she lived with her mother, to her work as a maid in the temple district and the cramped rooms they shared in the lower city, downwind from the fish market. She thought about the marble and gold of the holy buildings that she spent her days cleaning, and of the vast wealth hidden within. She thought, even, of the haughty priests and priestesses who ordered her about without condescending to so much as look in her direction, and of how there was only one place, the holiest-of-holies, where even the highest of them was humbled.

And when she opened her mouth, she said, “I just want to go home.”

[](http://imgur.com/x2C678q) (click to embiggen)


End file.
